


Lullaby of Katsuki

by APendingThought



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Agape Yuri Plisetsky, Cold, Cold Weather, Dehydration, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Fluff, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Son Relationship, Sick Character, Sickfic, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 00:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12805731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APendingThought/pseuds/APendingThought
Summary: Raising two kids to adulthood has had its ups and downs for Hiroko Katsuki. Now that she’s an expert, she is ready for a challenge.Enter Russia’s Ice Tiger





	Lullaby of Katsuki

**Author's Note:**

> Yuri gets Sick Hasetsu Style

Her English has never been more than perfunctory. Nonetheless, she enjoys chatting with foreign guests. 

Though it’s beyond bad manners to flaunt, she can’t help but beam when she watches Yuuri converse fluently in English to his new coach. The fact that her boy has managed to coax such a godlike image off his bedroom walls, across her threshold and into her parlor is still a wonder she shakes her head at. How this European man dotes on Yuuri, making his face go pink with his jibes. She’d kill to know what was so funny. It would be nice to be able to tease Yuuri in English too.

It’s not difficult to love Vicchan and he knows it. So easy, in fact, that his magnetism draws another all the way across the ocean and blustering into her bath house.  


The other Yuri is a sullen boy. Barely more than a child but he takes pains not to show it. He is everything she has raised her son not to be, stomping about her quiet wood floors with authority he hasn’t earned. The leopard prints and metal studs are obnoxious-- her son mutters “damn Yankee” under his breath whenever this golden-haired cherub throws a passion. An unholy din is what he is but noisy or not, he is still a guest.

Yurio kun brings with him the bitter cold from St. Petersburg as omiyage. Not two days after his arrival, the skies grey and darken, the wind howls and snow frosts the charming bamboo-lined pathways to the baths.

Winter departs like a jaded lover in Hasestsu, or so the saying goes in sub-tropical Kyuushuu. Though long-awaited Spring should herald a return of muggy breezes and blistering sunshine, the weather is now unwelcoming. Business grinds to a halt. 

Still, Hiroko makes the best of it. 

The foreigners take lightning-fast to the hot springs though the blonde one still wears a pinched expression. Steaming water has a universal effect on all life forms. Soothed by regular hot soakings and bowls of her home cooking, Yurio’s bristles and thorns lose their sting. His shoulders drop. He stops slamming doors.  


Until the cold snap hits. The temperature plummets so drastically, it’s too cold to keep the springs open.

“Can’t you turn the heat up???” Yurio’s birdlike limbs shake inside the oversized hooded sweatshirt he’s drowning in. The bafflement on his face when Yuuri explains the non-existence of central heating in Japan is endearing.

“How do you people not freeze to death?” His grumbling voice sounds scratchy. He’s clearing his throat often these days. What she had initially taken for gruffness is more likely the start of a cold.

“Same way we do.” Victor grins into his glass of beer. “By drinking like crazy.”

“Shut up, old man!” Yurio hides his glowing face in his arms with a groan. “Not my fault we’re in some backwards country where they don’t believe in heat!”

“Yuuri?” Hiroko taps her son on the shoulder. “Come and help me pull the kotatsu from the closet.”

Yuuri is quick to help her drag out the heavy kotatsu and set it up in Yurio’s room. It is rarely used, particularly in this part of the country. However, when freak snowstorms hit, she is glad she never gave it away. 

Yurio sits shuddering on the tatami, cold hands tucked snugly under his arms, socked feet hidden underneath his body. The skin of his bare knees is raised in goose pimples. She’d assumed figure skaters would have more tolerance to cold, particularly Russian ones, but this boy shivers so hard she can hear his teeth click in his mouth.

She wastes no time preparing the thick futon over the low wooden table, switching on the built-in electric heating fan concealed beneath its surface. Warm air immediately circulates through the makeshift tent. She lifts one corner of the futon and beckons but the boy doesn’t move.

Yuuri takes over.

“Feet go under. Like this.” He demonstrates, tucking himself under the futon. Yurio seems to be thinking it over. When Hiroko returns with a tray of green tea and cookies, both have disappeared to the waist beneath the kotatsu.

The pinched corners of Yurio’s mouth melt into his cheeks and his spine looks not so sharp. He leans back on his elbows, cushioned by the soft tatami mat. Like Yuuri, he’s been training hard. Dark circles of exhaustion ring his eyes in his pale face. From the looks of him, he’ll go to bed with a slight fever tonight. 

“Don’t fall asleep under the kotatsu.” Hiroko warns. Yuuri garbles out a meaningful translation between mouthfuls of butter cookie. 

But Yurio’s face is far away, lost in the bliss of feeling warm again. She’s not sure he’s even listening.  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“Are?” Eager to terrorize Yuuri’s friends with morning natto and raw egg over rice, she blinks at the empty space at her table. Victor and Yuuri both greet her in Japanese, waiting politely as she sets down bowls of miso soup.

Outside the wind tantrums like a hungry infant, throwing snow and sleet around with abandon. It is not a day to be out of doors.

“What about Yurio kun?”

“He said he wasn’t hungry.” Yuuri shrugs, helping himself to a slice of toast before Victor can lecture him about carbs.

“He used his words?” Victor’s lifts a smug silver brow. “He just growled at me.”

Hiroko frowns, wiping her hands on her apron. A boy his age and that rail thin not hungry?

“Should I bring him up something?” She wonders out loud.

“I’d keep your distance, Mama Kats.” Victor takes a prim sip from his tea cup. “He’s a beast before nine.”

But Hiroko fears no death.

The guest corridor is so quiet she can feel it. Most of the doors have been opened to air them out but the upstairs attic they’ve prepared for Yurio is completely shut. She raps on the wooden frame with her knuckles.

“Yurio kun! Breakfast is ready!” When no reply comes, she slides open the shoji door, murmuring the customary “Excuse me” to announce her intrusion. Yurio lies sprawled loosely on the floor, half buried under the futon. She can hear his snoring from where she stands in the door frame, skinny arms flung out in abandon above his head. The whir of the kotatsu fan mingles with his breathing. Her eyes widen. Had it been left on all night?

“Araaa....”

She scurries to the kotatsu, fumbling for the off switch. The boy does not wake from her proximity but right away, she notices the dampness of his skin, dark gold, limp strands falling across his flushed face. Softly, she pats his chest. He stirs but does not open his eyes. Next, she tries squeezing his shoulder and shaking him but this, too, fails.

“Mama…” He whispers hoarsely. “Mama nyet…”

“Atsu-” She murmurs, palm finding his forehead. She draws back when he flinches, tossing his head sharply to the side. Ignoring his feverish antsiness, she presses her fingertips firmly to his throat to feel his heartbeat racing.

She needs reinforcements. 

“Yuuri!”

“What’s the trouble mom?” Yuuri appears at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yurio kun forgot to turn off the kotatsu!” She wrings her hands as though equating this with a death sentence.

“What?!” His eyes go big.

“I need a hand!”

He and Victor quickly pad up the stairs, equally alarmed at Yurio’s condition. With the heating fan turned off, his limbs have begun to shake with chills despite his hot forehead. Taking charge, Victor tries to rouse him with sharp words in Russian but the boy pushes him away with surprising strength, retreating even further beneath the futon to curl into a shivery ball.

“Don’t be a baby, Yura!” Victor growls impatiently, reaching for him again but Yuuri stops him.

“I don’t think this is just a cold.” Yuuri murmurs, pressing the back of his hand against his cheek. “Feel him, Victor. He’s burning up!” 

“Fuck off…” Yurio swings a blind fist outward in the direction of the unwelcome contact but Victor gracefully dodges, planting a palm across his forehead. He, too, winces at the heat of it.

“Get him into bed and changed.” Hiroko orders. “I’ll be right back.”

She rushes downstairs and opens her fridge. There’s plenty of chilled juice, normally reserved as a non-alcoholic option for child guests. It’s just watered down concentrate but it will work to bring up his electrolytes and prevent further dehydration. He’ll need water as well so a couple pet bottles of spring water find their way onto her tray. 

A violent ruckus of shouting greets her at the top of the stairs. She dashes back into the room to find Yurio half-dressed and struggling in Victor’s arms, gangly limbs askew as he is doggedly relocated from the floor. All three boys are red in the face and panting.

“Told you…he was….difficult.” Victor grunts. Her son has wisely occupied himself with the task of removing the sweaty and crumpled hoodie and sweatpants in exchange for a clean, cool onsen jinbei. But Yurio is having none of it, pushing deliriously against his handlers in an attempt to escape though he quickly overheats from exertion. 

“Oh my!” She sets her tray of juice on the floor and claps her hands. “Yurio! That’s enough!”

The words are in Japanese but the message is universal. Immediately, Yurio’s struggling ceases. With a groan, he withers in Victor’s grip.

“Woah.” Victor pants as he heaves Yurio’s unwilling weight onto the bed. “Magic, Mama Kats!”

Yuuri rubs the tender spot on his cheek where Yurio had caught him with a left jab. The jinbei is only partially fastened but the fact that he is bedded and clothed at all has cost enough for one morning.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this sick.” Victor murmurs once the sick boy is tucked safely under the blanket. Hiroko had done the honors, as Yurio would not allow either Yuuri or Victor anywhere near without biting. She bravely rights the loose ties on the jinbei, keeping his chest covered. 

“Mom, we’ve got bigger problems.” Yuuri returns from his sprint around the house. “We’re completely out of aspirin.”

“Impossible! Have you checked Father’s office?”

“He took the last one a week ago.” 

“Check the guest rooms. Sometimes they leave a pill or two behind.”

Yuuri’s feet pound through the guest rooms while Victor accepts the burden of taking Yurio’s temperature. He manages this with only minimal force, pinning the slender arms down across his heaving chest. Yuri thrashes but Victor has more than a few pounds of developed muscle on him. In the end, he is kept still long enough for the thermometer to register.

“No medicine.” She frets in English. “Do you have?” She asks hopefully but he shakes his head.

“Soviet Union very strict. Government doesn’t allow medicine out of country without permission.”

Yuuri returns breathless and empty-handed, having checked every single cabinet, drawer, and corner of the bath house.

“Nothing mom.” He slumps against the door frame. “Not even a child’s dose.”

“The news is saying the storm won’t let up until evening. All the shops will be closed.” Hiroko bites her lip as she parts the curtains. Hasetsu is a small town and most people are sensible enough not to test Mother Nature. When the outdoors are violent, people stay inside.

Victor releases Yurio to withdraw the blipping thermometer from his armpit. Once freed, Yurio rolls over, desperate to find an elusive cool spot on the futon.

“Thirty eight point eight degrees.” He whistles.

“I’ll go!” Yuuri declares suddenly. Victor and Hiroko blink at him.

“Go?” She repeats. “Go where?”

“Yanagisawa sensei must keep the clinic open!” He reaches for his jacket and scarf. “I’ll call him on my way over.”

“But in this weather--?” 

“We need to bring his fever down, mom!” Yuuri insists. “Besides, this weather’s got nothing on Detroit.”

To think she’d ever allowed her precious baby boy to inhabit a country where snowstorms are called “nothing”. But he’s determined. Perhaps America has toughened him up?

“No worries Mama Kats!” Victor rises to his feet to grab his own coat. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get lost! But are you certain you can manage this brat by yourself?”  


“Oh, Yuuchan almost knocked one of my teeth loose last time he had flu. This one won’t be a problem.” 

“Mom!” 

Despite the fact that Victor had not understood a single word, Yuuri’s face is bright pink. He translates a modified version but finds Victor’s attention elsewhere-- enthusiastically pre-occupied with his phone camera. 

“The fans will eat this up!” Victor cackles, snapping close-ups of Yurio’s sweaty, crumpled face. His mouth gapes open as he breathes, hair tangled and mussed.

“Vitya!” Yuuri smacks the phone out of his hand. “Be nice! He’s sick!”

“But blackmail is only way to keep naughty kitten on good behavior!” Victor winks, allowing himself to be dragged from the room and pushed out the door.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
She begins tidying up the room, starting with folding his dirty wrinkled clothes and putting them in the hamper. 

He isn’t quite asleep though he needs to be; the fever is too uncomfortable and won’t let him. His body is restless; constantly seeking out cooler space that turns molten the instant he touches it. This agitated, he’ll never settle down so with firm hands she rights his body, straightening his long legs and crossing his arms gently over his chest. Then she changes the heavier blanket for a lighter one. This way, he’ll still sweat out the fever.

His eyes crack open, listless and bright. A murmured Russian plea escapes his dry lips. When she doesn’t respond immediately, he repeats it over and over again.

It doesn’t take a linguistics expert to know what he needs. 

By the time the bottle of juice e opens with a pop, she has mastered the Russian phrases: “Too hot” and “Thirsty.”

She helps him sit up, holding his head as he sips. He sighs in relief at the first deep gulp, desperate for more. She holds the glass steady, clicking her tongue when he gulps it too fast.

“Slow. Small sip.” The warning comes too late. He coughs and gags, drops running down his chin. She wipes them away immediately, dabbing the corners of his mouth clean with her bare hand. 

She learns the Russian word for “Thank you” not long after.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
In her day, bags of crushed ice held meticulously in place by doting grandmothers sitting endless vigil had been the remedy for high fever. Modern demands of running a business, however, have never granted Mrs. Katsuki such noble acts of devotion.

She peels away an adhesive compress from its backing with a slow hiss. Their colorful designs give them a childish appearance and, indeed, these products are aimed at toddlers who spike temperatures if glanced at the wrong way.  
She smooths the blue and yellow gel pack over his hot forehead like a band aid. If Vicchan wants more blackmail for his Instagram thing, the cherubic face plastered with a star-festooned compress will “end the internet” as Yuuri puts it. Whatever that means. Yurio, for his part, sleeps unaware of his humiliation. 

With the coolant working its magic, she is finally allowed to step away from her patient to tend business downstairs and take a pee break. With so few guests, breakfast hours have been cut. Yu-topia’s main entrance is empty except for her husband hiding away in his office. There are only a handful of guests though she expects a couple brave regulars in the restaurant by evening. Not even a snowstorm keeps true devotees away from her katsu don. This means prep work in the kitchen.

She dumps a bowl of leftover rice from breakfast in a heavy pot and covers it in water. Mari, done with her morning shift, inspects the pot of rice porridge bubbling on the stove.

“Who’s sick?”

“That quick-tempered blonde upstairs.”

“Yurio kun?” Mari simpers, melting at the idea.

“Fell asleep under the kotatsu last night. Running a fever.”

“Coughing or puking? Does he need more blankets? How high is his fever?” Mari starts to ramble.

“Your brother’s gone out with Vicchan to buy medicine.” Hiroko arches her stiff back, noting the violently howling winds outside. “I need you to watch the pot, make sure it doesn’t boil over.”

“Will he even like okayuu?” Mari wrinkles her nose at the steaming white gruel.  


Hiroko considers the contents of her fridge. “I was thinking to use the tarako left over from Yuuri’s welcome home party and dried leek.”

“Cod roe?” Mari lifts an eyebrow. 

“I hear caviar is very popular in Russia.” She throws in half a palm of salt, gives it a stir and lowers the heat to simmer. “At worst, he’ll just bring it back up again.”

“Hmmm?” Mari is non-committal but takes the spoon from her mother. “Well, if he does, let me know. I’m on laundry today.”

“I didn’t forget, dear.”

She hopes the boy upstairs will just sleep for a few hours. Until Yuuri and Vicchan come back, there isn’t much else she can think to make him comfortable. His stand-offish nature would probably go against her help anyway. As she goes about her business, random items unconsciously find their way into her pocket. _A mimikaki. Handkerchief. Ointment. A clean thermometer._

A loud thump from above makes her pause. Pushing up her glasses, she rushes back upstairs. 

He is sprawled on the floor, twisted up in his blankets. At first, she blanches. Had he suffered a dizzy spell and fainted? But no, his limbs are moving, attempting to right himself. He likely just slipped. The poor graceless thing not even on the ice.

“I can’t leave you alone, can I?” 

Kicking over a zabuton cushion on her way in, she settles her weight down with a ladylike grunt. Once situated, she calls him, patting the space beside her.  
“Come.”

To encourage him, she makes a soft, reassuring sound in the back of her throat like a mother cat greeting her only kitten. He drags himself the short distance, planting his feverish head in her lap. She strokes his head gently but he winces, eyes squeezed in pain. His head must ache terribly, it’s a symptom of dehydration. 

“Yosh, yosh, yosh, nen, nen, nen…” Perhaps it is just their repetition, but the foreign words settle him. He has no way of knowing they mean: “Hush, be good now.”

She makes her assessment once he is quiet and still.

She feels his wrist. She’s no stranger to dizzy spells in her business. The rapid, uneven beat of his heart reminds her that he hasn’t had water recently. She removes the dried out compress from his burning forehead with regret. She’d hoped it would last a bit longer but his fever is too high. 

“Hot…” He whispers desperately into her knees.

The unkempt state of his hair bothers her. She parts his bangs with her fingers and begins plaiting, just to get the tangled golden mass up and away from his overheated face and neck. He grimaces, jerking in pain when her fingers brush his ear.

“Oh! Hurt?” His annoyed growl affirms. She fishes around in her apron pocket and plucks out the mimikaki.

Her foreign guests are often stunned by the casual ways in which body fluids and natural functions are discussed here. In Japan, cleaning ears for someone else is just another form of affection, especially young children to unskilled to do it themselves. A mimikaki is a thin bamboo rod with a sterile cotton ball on one end and a small curved scoop on the other. Gently, she cleans the outside of his ear with the soft cotton first, dabbing gingerly whenever he winces in discomfort. With the scooped end she very gently inserts partway into his ear canal.  
Holding his sweaty head still, she delicately cleans the inside of his ear, careful not to scrape against the sensitive inner membrane. Task completed, she wraps the used mimikaki in a tissue and discards it. 

She folds back the collar of his jinbei and deftly tucks the thermometer underneath his bare arm before he can put up too much of a fuss. She cannot blame him when he does. The hard plastic must feel ice cold and intrusive against his too-hot skin when all he wants to do is sleep.

He squirms and whines but she holds him firmly.

“Yuri. Be still.” She warns. 

Thankfully, the device registers quickly. Her daughter’s footsteps up the stairs echo closer just as it begins to beep.

“How is he?” Mari asks from the door frame. She holds a covered bowl.

“Thirty nine point three.” She clicks the thermometer off with a sigh, closing the collar of the jinbei. 

Her daughter chews her lip and offers the bowl. “Think he’ll eat anything?”

“Later.” Hiroko decides. “Better that he rests now.” 

“Where the hell are they?” Mari mutters. Hiroko hopes Yuuri and Vicchan are on their way back. If any customers arrive, she will have no choice but to leave him.

“Should we take him to the hospital?” 

“Not if we can help it.” She pats his chest when he makes a sound between a cough and a whine, hoping he will go back to sleep.

“I’ll get some ice.” However, when she attempts to shift him from her lap to lay him on the floor, he rolls over on his stomach and encircles his arms about her plump waist.

“Oh!”

“Mama, don’t!” He whines, hugging her tighter. She cannot guess what reality now mixes with delusion in his fevered mind. All she knows is that she answers to that title.

“Aw look mom!” Mari coos. “He likes you!”

“Oh my!” She titters nervously. “Alright dearie, I’m not moving.” She returns to her kneeling position, stroking his head until his muscles go lax again. 

An odd clicking noise grasps her attention. She looks up to discover her daughter snapping photos on her phone.

“I can see the hashtags now!” Mari presses her hands against her blushing cheeks, giddy with excitement. “Collapse of the Soviet! Ice Tiger Melts! Taming of the Shrew! Mother! Russia!”

“That’s quite enough dear. Now get that ice.” Hiroko chides her.

Despite his obvious lack of experience with the word, it is clear that a great many surely do love him.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
He refuses to get back into bed. No matter how she and Mari try to cajole him, he resists. He is stubborn as a mule for an ice tiger, perfectly content right where he is on the cool, woven-straw floor—attached to her.

So much for housework.

After recording the Fall of Yuri Plisetsky, she sends Mari to the bathhouse to carry up a wooden washtub of ice water. He’s been sweating copiously and losing fluids, if he’s going to cling to her all evening; he is going to be clean while he does it.

The higher his temperature climbs, the more this sullen teenager reveals himself. Undoubtedly, he’d been spoiled. Adored by fans, pampered like a celebrity, put on a pedestal and worshiped on magazine covers and internet sites but none of this has educated him.

He’s definitely nothing like the son she’d raised. He doesn’t seem aware at all that her world has stopped just for him. Yuuri never burdened anyone, least of all his mother who had a business to run. He had always been obedient. This boy fights his sickness like a physical foe with curses and poorly-aimed fists. Maybe that’s the kind of medicine he’s used to.

“Mama?” Pale lashes flutter, head twisting in her lap.

She reaches for the pet bottle of water she’s placed by his futon and cracks it open. Angling his neck to a tilt, she makes him drink. He takes a long pull, tries to turn his face away but the bottle follows him, prodding gently. He needs more whether he wants it or not.

Unable to disobey, he accepts another swallow before he begins coughing. She wipes his chin and sets him back down, turning to fetch the washcloth floating in the chilled basin.

When she turns back, his eyes are open. 

“Oh! You’re awake?”

He isn’t truly. Dazed eyes scan the ceiling and her face uncertainly. She holds her breath. What a startling green his eyes are! 

“Mmmn…where?” His listless gaze begins to wander, agitated. She can’t explain well enough to put him at ease so she reverts to soothing.

“Yuri.” She can say his name at least but the rest of the English she flubs. “Yuri, good. Sleep.”

He doesn’t seem convinced, chest rising and falling faster.

She gets to work, squeezing the washcloth and shaking it of excess moisture. With a finger, she tugs loose the ties of his jinbei to expose his chest. His shivering returns with a pained hiss when she swabs the damp washcloth over his skin.

He hisses in Russian. She can only guess it means either “Cold!” or “Fuck!”

When he attempts to fight her, she makes that sound in the back of her throat again and he backs down. Rubbing his bare arms and shoulders with the cloth, she lifts his head briefly to hold it against the back of his sweaty neck. This makes him go still with relief.

“Mama…?” He pants, attempting to focus on her face. It seems to be the only word they have in common.

Hiroko feels her cheeks redden. She cannot speak Russian, can barely manage a few words in English. Not since Mari’s infancy, when she’d woken her in the middle of the night, has she felt this out of sorts. But then she’d had her mother to help.

A second child is often easier than the first. She’d had her taste of unthinkable disaster with Mari, who’d been fond of spitting up technicolor whenever she’d turned her back. Yuuri, by contrast, had been an effortless baby. He only ever cried to remind her it was feeding time. This boy now resting in her lap is a first and only baby. A mother can tell.

The washcloth gets a final cooling in the washtub, folded neatly over his forehead. She pats his head, hoping to relax him but he remains restless and confused. Perhaps it is for the better that he isn’t in command of his senses. Sick and so far away from home? Anyone would be frightened.

Her mind drifts to another endless evening . Yuuri had been only a year old with his first ear infection. Intensely hot, he would neither quiet nor cool. Nothing worked. Not milk, not sweets, not even a cooling bath. He’d screamed and screamed until his fevered little body was red all over and shaking with exhaustion. She’d never felt so useless or so frightened.

Grandma had picked him up and sat him on her lap, even as he twisted and kicked, punched and sobbed. She cradled him in her strong arms, rocked him, and sang her song over and over again. 

Obaachan had a voice cracked as old leather, tough and tinged with sorrow. But whether it was her song or the tenacity of it, there must have been some magic in the words. The withered notes chased away her son’s pain, cooling his fever as gentle as summer rain. At only a year old, Yuuri had no way of understanding. He was asleep by the time Toshio returned with the doctor.

She hasn’t used her mother’s dialect in years. It isn’t proper to go flashing your locality around when guests hail from all over. But there’s no harm in trying. She clears her throat and strokes his head. 

The words grate in her throat, rusty and very old. 

_“As soon as O-Bon comes_  
I will leave for home  
The sooner Obon comes, the sooner I depart.  
I am no better than a beggar  
These people are wealthy with their finery  
Grand kimono and beautiful obi.  
Who will mourn me when I die?  
Only the cicada in the mountain behind the house.” 

New sweat gleams on his brow, the perspiration of a fever broken. What a good child he is, she thinks. Sound asleep after just one verse! She is grateful. She cannot, for the life of her, remember how the rest of it goes.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“Are? Mom?”  
A draft of frozen air sweeping in wakes her. Hiroko starts from her slouched pose on the floor to see Yuuri in the door frame, cheeks pink from outside. She blinks back her sleep haze, righting the glasses that have slipped down her face. 

“Oh Yuuri! Welcome back!”

He unwinds the scarf from around his neck. “Sorry to keep you waiting. The roads were frozen over so we had to take some detours. But we got the medicine!” He proudly holds up a white paper pharmacy bag.

“This is too precious!” Victor is already capturing new angles of Yurio in his sweaty, crumpled, clingy glory. “Really Mama Kats, you are a marvel! These pics will definitely go viral!”

“Speaking of viral, how’s Yurio?”

“Still blonde.” She yawns. “Yuuri, help me put him back to bed?” She begins to shift him, numb and tingling all over from the immobility. She’s lucky she’s had so much training sitting seiza all these years. It is Victor, however, who takes charge.

“Please mama, allow me.” He stoops down, ready to hoist him up.

Gently loosening the boy’s tenacious grip, he gathers him into his arms—careful not to wake him. Victor deposits him on the bed and tucks him in. The boy stirs briefly, eyes fluttering open.

“Vic...tor?”

“Yes princess, it’s me. We got your medicine.”

“Mmm?” Groggy, Yuri’s eyes strain to focus. Victor presses his lips to his forehead while Yura is too out of it to strike him.

“You seem much cooler now Yurachka!” His eyebrows list in surprise.

Yura’s eyes drift to the side, searching until they rest on her face.

“Agape.” Is all he says before drifting back to sleep

**Author's Note:**

> The lullaby Mama Kats sings to Yuuri is the Kyuushuu komori-uta called "Lullaby of Itsuki". Old fashioned lullabies in Japan were often laments written by the poor young girls whose lives were spent watching over the babes of rich households. Cast away by their own families and forced into a life of servitude, the lyrics often reflected a longing for the finery around them.


End file.
